Day To Be Living

I haven’t forgotten about my blog, even though it seems like I have. More substantive updates to come on a whole range of topics once I sit down, and totally new ones.

Life has been very busy with many recent changes, especially with my wife briefly moving to Boise for 6 months for work! We also had a tumultuous experience buying her a Toyota Prius after her Nissan Versa was totaled after being rear ended (she’s recovering okay though). We returning the Prius we bought to CarMax (a very bad experience, something I’ll share in more detail later) and finally having a good experience buying a different Prius at the small, independent at Powell Motors.

This weekend once I’m traveling back to Idaho, I’ll have more to share, since this is only my second post in May. More to come soon!

There are a lot of blog topics I need to catch up on from more than a week! More to come soon on topics not yet written but on top of mind.

But, first, I must give some enormous respect to the legendary Gen Z, American musician Billie Eilish. Earlier today, I saw the her tour documentary in 3D with my wife, sister-in-law, and family friend at this indie movie theater in SE Portland. I also had the privilege of seeing her live at the Moda Center on December 8, 2024 for her global “Hit Me Hard and Soft” tour, and was very impressed by her concert! I will absolutely be seeing her every time she’s in town. She’s the real deal.

Side note: if you get the opportunity to watch her documentary or see her live in the future, I would highly recommend it! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill… Reportedly she made this concert movie in part to allow everyone to see her show, including those who couldn’t attend. Respect!

I first heard of Billie Eilish sometime towards the end of the before times in the late 2010s, but I vividly remember 94.7 FM playing her song “Bad Guy” and digging it. However, I hadn’t explored much of her catalog and many of her amazing songs were yet to be released. Among the so-called “pop girlies,” she’s easily my favorite, both in terms of musicianship, and collaboration with her older brother Finneas, but also among the Gen Z celebrities… for several reasons. I was surprised to learn that she’s even younger than I thought, and still only 24 years old (born December 18, 2001) a whole 6 years younger than me!

First, she has a high degree of self confidence in writing and performing, but she seems quite grounded and humble given her enormous success. It’s clear she values her fans sincerely, and tries to connect with them the best she can. She’s walked the walk, and stood up for important causes for between voting, environmentalism, LGBTQ+ issues, bullying, and veganism among others when she didn’t have to. Also, she famously prohibited TicketFucker from allowing above face ticket resale on their platform (something I mentioned in my TicketFucker rant many posts ago, something few artists, let alone her size, have dared to do.) I mean what’s not to like?

I find it attractive and badass that since she’s had many male musician influences, she chooses to dress in more androgynous, less revealing attire, authentic to her own style, and still prove commercially successful and admired. Sure, there are some young pop women who are great musically, and also choose to focus more on the sex appeal element, but Billie Eilish proves you can still be pretty and attractive, without it being mandatory in pop culture. I think it’s nice to show younger generations, especially young girls but everyone, that you can be authentically yourself and inspire others.

I plan to talk more cool details soon about the movie and my favorite songs of hers, but suffice it to say for now, I liked Billie Eilish before today, and I like her even more now.

Pictured below: Billie and Finneas at The Forum in LA, January 18, 2020.

I must say, I find the whole “fast charging” craze for electronic high tech devices a bit worrisome. I noticed my last iPhone didn’t keep a charge well, after only about a year. Oftentimes I charged it with my Mac charger, which was supposedly “safe” to do, but the higher wattage probably wasn’t ideal for the battery’s longevity. It also said the battery health was better than it likely really was at 85%, and thus ineligible for a free battery replacement with AppleCare, which requires being at 79% health or below.

Lucky for me, I was able to do a trade-in with Verizon with a free upgrade from the iPhone 15 Pro Max to the iPhone 17 Pro Max. Supposedly the 17 Pro Max has the best smartphone battery of any flagship model right now, whether iOS or Android, from what I read.

So far, I like the new phone and it’s been WAY better! I’m trying to be mindful of good battery habits, like taking the case off, if charging with the MagSafe charger instead of USB-C cable, so the battery’s temp doesn’t get too hot.

I started looking into this whole fast charge bullshit more, and realized slow charging is far better.

Similarly, I follow the 80/20 rule for all of my high-tech devices, including my Garmin smartwatch and Oura ring, by never charging above 80% and never letting it dip below 20%, if possible, as it’s supposedly best for the battery longevity to stay in the middle. Once in a while going above that or to a full charge is OK, and sometimes I’ll forget and charge up to 90% or so, but I try not to. Yes, I have to charge my devices more often this way, but I’d like the battery health to stay good for as long as possible, and most importantly, hold a charge with a slow linear decline (not go from 19% to 17% to then 4%).

Fortunately my new iPhone has an autostop feature above 80% charging, although the Garmin watch and Oura ring do NOT have those features. These devices still charge relatively fast, even with lower wattage USB-C ports on my Mac, so I always keep an eye when charging them, since I want their batteries to last.

Why don’t these device makers have consumer warnings, or built-in features to stop fast charging? I wonder if this will become more of an issue in the coming years, especially with bigger ticket items like EVs… We’ll see.

I found an interesting article on this topic. www.recurrentauto.com/research/… But if you are curious to learn more about batteries, whether personal electronic devices or EVs, I encourage you to do some searching, and maybe ask a few AI chatbots for some source material.

I think that in addition to healthy communication skills and boundaries, it should be required curriculum for people to learn how to deal with narcissists—or at best, extremely self-absorbed behavior—effectively. Whether or not the person is pathologically a “narcissist,” has C-PTSD, or is intentional about it is neither here nor there. If you see the behavior, you have to deal with it based on best practices for handling narcissism.

I worry that actual narcissism gets too often reframed more positively as simple C-PTSD or anxious-avoidant issues. Even if it’s not clinical NPD, narcissistic behaviors need to be treated the same regardless of whether the person qualifies as a narcissist or not. We make all types of justifications for why someone we care about isn’t one—we can cherry-pick examples of when they’ve been nice, or thoughtful, or generous. It’s just confirmation bias. Regardless, problematic behavior is still problematic behavior.

Too often there is a cultural emphasis, especially among my fellow white liberals, on being “nice” or “classy.” That’s great much of the time, maybe even most of the time, but NOT all of the time—as misguided conventional wisdom implies. Secure attachment and healthy boundaries matter leaps and bounds more. Fuck “niceness” and “classiness” if it means avoiding difficult, necessary conversations, bottling up frustrations, or people-pleasing. A stitch in time saves nine, so whether nine stitches, or any stitches are needed, it simply must get done.

If you’re an intuitively empathetic person like I am, it can feel cold and “not nice” at first to respond to narcissistic-coated provocations using best practices. In your soul, you just naturally want to give people the benefit of the doubt. I say be open-minded, but reserve that benefit for those whose behavior has earned it, and change your approach when it becomes increasingly clear that someone isn’t acting in good faith.

Part of wisdom is watching people’s behaviors closely and staying vigilant to people’s bullshit. Know your truth and trust what you see. Take someone else’s perspective as their truth, not gospel. If anyone gaslights you, or you even suspect it, never believe them—confidently say “I remember it differently” or “I see things differently.” Never use reason and logic with people who won’t do so in good faith.

I will admit, some “yellow flags” could just be people who need to process their feelings before yours, struggle to communicate under stress, or are conflict-avoidant. If someone fights you on how you feel because they’re bad at disagreeing, that’s a yellow flag, but only at first. Firm boundaries should go up, but it’s still worth engaging if it’s clear they’re acting imperfectly, yet still trying. Yellow flags, to me, are imperfect but good-faith communication. We’re all guilty of it from time to time.

Where it becomes a red flag is when you feel like a hamster on a wheel of endless drama, where the ONLY path out is people-pleasing, capitulating, or agreeing to disproportionate blame—all while someone refuses to even TRY—even imperfectly—to see where you’re coming from, makes themselves the direct victim of YOUR pain rather than theirs, and offers ZERO observable effort whatsoever for resolution, even after you’ve begged for it and CLEARLY stated your needs. You’ve done everything in your bandwidth and ability to be fair, take accountability, and own what’s yours—the other person refuses to acknowledge your efforts at that, even when prompted… yet at the same time, you’re offered ZERO comparable reciprocity that you’ve offered them, and the problem paradoxically STILL continues to deteriorate rather than improve!

If that’s ever felt like you: STOP right now. That is 100% NOT your fault! Even if you made communication blunders along the way. That is harmful behavior.

Most importantly, your first priority must be to not get sucked in to the black hole of endless drama. Because the consequences are severe and cannot be overstated. Eventually once your goodwill gets exploited to the point of your own emotional bankruptcy, you WILL inevitably snap, act completely out of character, and the whole focus will shift to your reaction, all while you feel at fault and guilty for reacting. That’s the narcissist’s goal though!

So, for your own mental health, I cannot overstate how you MUST change your typical/natural approach! Expect blowback—narcissists don’t like it when you stop playing the drama game—but you have to white-knuckle through the initial awfulness, which may take days. Stick it out. Be patient. And importantly, reassure yourself over and over and over again.

We all have moments of being egotistical, self-righteous, and making things worse. That’s one thing. But if you know in good faith that you’ve tried to be reasonable—and feel like your goodwill has been exploited, and you’re still being gaslit, accused of what they’re doing when you aren’t, and the drama keeps getting worse—then congratulations: regardless of the person’s clinical pathology, you’re dealing with narcissism, straight up.

I’d also add: the moment you shift from feeling “I’m frustrated, hurt, and disappointed with the other person. I just want us to resolve this, feel understood, and make sure we’re both okay,” to feeling genuine contempt for the other person’s character, fighting every urge to say “fuck you, you manipulative, gaslighting piece of shit” —

Then it’s past time to play hardball and use best narcissism practices.

So far I’ve been listening to Mel Robbins, Jefferson Fisher, and Dr. Ramani Durvasula for good info on these topics. I urge you to do so too if you have not!

As a Rush fan, I couldn’t help but include imagery of the late Neil Peart performing Rush’s instrumental song Malignant Narcissism…

You know, I must say, I’ve gotten a couple of false positives with my Oura ring’s Symptom Radar feature (sometimes from slightly superior biometrics, like higher than baseline HRV, which is the opposite of what coming down with illness brings), but it really came in handy for stopping an oncoming cold in its tracks for me this week. Sunday night going into Monday morning, I slept well enough with an Oura sleep score of 84 (just a point shy of optimal, which is 85 and up).

However, despite total, REM, deep sleep, and the like being solid, I woke up with “minor signs” on Monday morning, showing that I had an elevated body temperature and respiration rate, even though my heart rate variability (HRV) was within baseline range. I didn’t even know I felt off yet, but the ring picked up on my elevated overnight temp and breathing. Pretty cool!

So, I had immune defense on top of mind upon waking up, even though I still felt asymptomatic, with the exception of feeling a bit more fatigued than normal after going bike riding the day before (Sunday afternoon). So I had a bunch of my usual homeopathic medicines that have helped before. Sure enough, a few hours later I felt a slight sticky throat, but had already downed a bunch of preventative measures, made tea, drank water, and did what I could. The nice thing about these natural immune meds is they allow your body to get a fever and flush it out. I’m a big fan of Cold-EEze Zinc lozenges and Umcka brand cold and flu relief items. I also had AG1 and a ton of orange juice.

Sure enough, I felt mostly better as Monday went on, and by this early to mid day today, I felt back to normal. I even woke up today with no symptom radar. Not sure how much if the ring and natural meds were a complete panacea, or I got lucky, but it’s encouraging nonetheless!

Worth a quick mention: TicketMaster/Live Nation losing in federal court: www.youtube.com/watch Kudos to the states that pressed on!

I’ve talked before about how monopolistic their practices have become. Around the same time, I saw that Live Nation is offering $30 tickets for certain shows. See here: www.kgw.com/article/e…

I can’t help but wonder if this is saving face from worsening bad press, or if this preemptively satisfies some undisclosed, anti-trust, court-mandated requirements? It’s unclear from what I can see, but I’ll be staying tuned what happens in the near future.

When talking with my therapist about healthy boundaries as a theme, he recommended an interesting documentary to watch through that lens, titled “Deconstructing Karen.” You can find it online to stream for a couple bucks: www.youtube.com/watch I think it’s absolutely worth a watch, but not for the first reason that might come to mind with being “more woke.” I think it’s worth a watch to see boundary setting within the group, and as a microcosm into why we’re unfortunately and expectedly regressing on DEI. In my view, (and others may disagree with me, as I mean, that’s part of living in a supposed democracy right?) so-called “wokeness” has gone SO far off the rails that I don’t even see the term as virtuous. Rather, I see wokeness as synonymous uniformly-minded, context-bankrupt cancel culture—something that has overall done far more harm than good.

In this film, the lack of self awareness of the Indian woman and black woman leading this group was astounding. Do they not see their own implicit biases against these white women, based on their own trauma? They are treating white people, which have diverse subcultures within, as one monolith. On a fundamental level, I see things differently. Me having a different perspective doesn’t make me the racist or white supremacist these women would think I am. It was a bit entertaining watching Tucker Carlson criticize the documentary so far in the other direction: www.youtube.com/watch

I’ve attended the NW Public Employees Diversity Conference before and was in my 20s during the Black Lives Matter movement. I saw well-intended and important efforts backfire, and DEI just miss the mark. It was namely with lower-income, less-educated white people, who do face real struggles in our society. It would not be truly diverse, equitable, or inclusive to leave out all white people, as though they are this one oppressive monolith. I had privileges that a white impoverished trailer park kid in rural Ohio, with an institutionalized father and single drug addict mother simply didn’t have. Many BIPOC folks have better opportunities than that. It’s not all black and white in 2026, literally and figuratively.

Look, I’m married to an immigrant. I have first-handedly witnessed and experienced systemic racism in America’s immigration system, and am still experiencing it with the green card process, in ways most Americans, oppressed or not, simply don’t understand well. It’s OKAY and understandable that others don’t totally get it. It’s not people’s fault for not knowing what they haven’t had the opportunity to learn. Thus, they shouldn’t be attacked or villainized for it.

I get that being born a U.S. citizen who is white, male, straight, cisgender, upper-middle class, college-educated, and the like gave me real and tangible advantages unrealized by others. I acknowledge, and do appreciate that. I’m not going to pretend to understand what it’s like to be part of an oppressed group or think I know better. I will listen and validate other peoples' lived trauma and experiences. And sure, I have implicit biases like all of us that I should do my best to stay aware of. We all have them though! It’s okay that we do. It’s totally normal, and it’s totally human. Implicit biases ranging from totally innocuous to less so. It’s what we do with these biases that matters.

Where I draw the line is falsely accusing people of being “racists” or “white supremacists,” or saying that we are all racist and white supremacist because of our oppressive system. I’m sorry, but I think that’s fucking bullshit. I draw the line not because I’m a fragile white person as the Robin DiAngelos of the world may assert. No, I strongly disagree on principle. My perspective is, and should be treated as just as valid, as someone from an oppressed group. Frank Bruni in his book “The Age of Grievance” hits the nail on the fucking head, and I’m totally in alignment with his viewpoint. Actual racism and white supremacy is very serious, very fucked up shit. It totally devalues these extreme and pejorative labels to assert we’re all racist and white supremacists when we’re not.

I have never done anything to actually oppress others, and I know it. The worst “crime” I committed is being part of our societal system, which we’re all part of. Have I made so-called “microaggressions,” before a very badly-phrased label for what’s really just totally unintentionally/accidentally triggering someone who’s faced systemic trauma? Sure. Have my intentions not matched my impact? Sure. Someone committing a so-called microaggression, should not have ill intent assumed, which is what almost always happens.

It should be a calm, and thoughtful learning opportunity for understanding, and dare I say it, for love. For PLUR. By the way, so many anecdotal reports of people on MDMA and/or psychedelics have claimed to be colorblind and see people’s oneness and humanity. I can’t imagine substances that chemically induce emotional vulnerability by opening up the higher echelons of the mind and consciousness invoke “racism” and “white supremacist” thinking! Tell me: when was the last time someone under the influence of psychedelics committed terrorism or a hate crime? Even sober, if the proverbial white person says “they don’t see color” because we all bleed red, and they want to see the beauty of people’s individuality and character? Not everyone has to agree or like that, but people should still be afforded the benefit of the doubt. Not doing so really backfires, as evident by the anti-DEI push back in the years since George Floyd’s horrific murder at the hands of an ACTUAL racist and white supremacist.

Even worse yet, people are “cancelled.” I had a couple of acquaintances who effectively cancelled my wife and I because we disagreed with them about the PSU library being occupied by hardcore pro-Palestinian protesters. These protesters will conveniently refuse to denounce Hamas or October 7th, even if prompted. Uh… really? Where’s the nuance in a very tragic, theocratic, and complicated geo-political history? I’d never defend Netanyahu! I think he’s a radical Jewish terrorist and war criminal. He’s at least as bad for Israel as Trump is for America. Neither Netanyahu nor Sinwar supported a two-state solution, now did they?

Anyways, speaking of the Middle East, as contrasted with the “Deconstructing Karen” documentary, I came across Rick Steves. Since world travel is among my ongoing bucket list, I love travel documentaries. I knew the guy was a PBS travel journalist, and heard of him, but I didn’t realize he actually went to Iran back in 2009. His perspective on seeing peoples' humanity, especially as one of the rare Americans permitted to visit Iran, was pretty cool. A good corollary to Frank Bruni, I’d say. A recent interview since the Iran War began was great: www.youtube.com/watch Worth the 20 min listen! More to come on this another time!

No meteor showers visible today, with the morning clouds blocking the view. Not a perfect start to my day with realizing one bag of groceries was left in the car last night unrefrigerated. Only a few items were in there, so maybe a $15 mistake, but it certainly made last minute breakfast more difficult. Sometimes the ball is intercepted on the first play of the game and you’re down a touchdown 30 seconds in. But you have the ball again and are making your way down the field. Today is one of those days.

Maybe it’s a fitting metaphor for environmental progress. Huge setbacks by Trump 2.0, but some progress is being made. Today is Earth Day. Happy 56th birthday! So much history surrounding it, starting before 1970, an era when Congress actually acted responsibly on occasion (i.e. Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act, were all passed around this time. Notably the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts as well!)

One noteworthy and local environmental current event getting very insufficient media attention is the issue of the City of The Dalles attempting to buy 150 acres of Mt. Hood National Forest Land from the federal government, at the local community’s economic and environmental expense. Here’s a good article about it: waterwatch.org/trust-iss… Don’t be fooled by the proposed legislations' specious title “The Dalles Watershed Redevelopment Act.” And guess who introduced it? Representative Cliff Bentz, the lone wolf Congressional Republican in Oregon. Fuck that shithead. Check out the primary source text for yourself, straight from the source: www.congress.gov/committee…

That title makes it sound so much more harmless than it really is. To reference yesterday’s post: doesn’t a food processing facility sound so much better than a slaughterhouse? Doesn’t enhanced interrogation sound so much better than torture? It’s the same idea here.

The Dalles genuinely needs all of this extra water for its (nonexistent) explosive population growth, right? No… just kidding! They aren’t in the Portland metro area. This legislation is just a pretext to pave the way for the enormous water needs—almost exclusively—for the greedy, extractive, and exploitative data center companies. If that’s not bad enough, they want to use resources for less money per unit of utilities than the local community’s utility costs. Their local politicians are totally conning them. I’m no conspiracy theorist normally, but certainly I wouldn’t be quick to rule out the unproven possibility of data center lobbying, and secretly paying off all these leaders behind the scenes. After all, it is expressly signing away protected federal land. No one who is sincerely and thoughtfully looking out for the community, in their right mind would ever support this legislation as written—at least without serious strings attached to the data centers, which aren’t there.

Also, and not unimportantly, this new legislation arguably violates existing federal laws, like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Public Lands Act, among others. One perspective on recent Trump admin actions: westernlaw.org/73-wester…

Sometimes the devil is in the details. It’s the seemingly boring bullshit that often ACTUALLY matters. People need to FUCKING READ legislative texts, contracts, deeds and the like. As an MPA graduate, I can tell you it sounds far more intimidating to do so than it actually is. If you are literate, speak English fluently, and have a high school diploma, you can do so. If you don’t speak English fluently, ironically AI chatbots are cutting edge translators for this kind of thing!

I’m not an anti-AI person, and I think we can have it both ways. Data centers are part of the future. If said data center wanted to develop near the Columbia River, use and treat the river water for their operations (which these companies could easily afford to do), subject to monitoring and huge fines for violations, as well as increased metering rates going forward per violation, incentives would be in place. If they were on unprotected land, where trees weren’t being cut down, that’s one thing. But of course, that’s not what’s really going on, and the community is either being conned, unaware, or not paying attention.

Like any big corporation, they aren’t inherently bad, but they are inherently exploitative if not held to account. Capitalism does great harm if unchecked like it usually is. Corporations must pay their fair share. They must be regulated, with stringent environmental standards, pay for at least their per unit cost of utilities, plus capital expenditures associated with their required infrastructure improvement costs so residents and small businesses aren’t holding their bag. That should not be a partisan or controversial statement like abortion, guns, and immigrations inevitably will be. Across the political spectrum, that should be as universal as it gets. Plus the proposed job growth and economic benefits are so fleeting with data center construction, relative to long term costs forced on the locals.

Could you blame those who don’t like data centers and AI? This is the case in point why the left hates capitalism. If Walmart or Amazon wants to move to your small community, then great! Let them. They will provide an economic benefit, unlike an ICE facility, which costs the local economy and taxing jurisdictions.

I’ve literally heard both companies try to bully Washington County and Multnomah County on property tax assessment, as though they should be valued on “dark store” theory, which is not a statutory or industry standard. It’s why a small municipality, with possible rare and unusual exceptions, should never give tax incentives or set up enterprise zone property tax abatements or deferrals for big corporations that would be building there anyways.

When people talk about both Democrats and Republicans being the same, and being in the pockets of corporate interests—this is what they’re talking about, because it’s been total fucking crickets from Jeff Merkley, Ron Wyden, Tina Kotek, and all other prominent Democrats from what I’ve found. And probably for a reason! Democrats suck less than Republicans, but are still uninspirational as fuck. Of course I’ll vote for Democrats over fascists every time. But every election—for me at least—has always been voting between two or more bad choices, and determining the least bad. Who can I vote for that will harm us the least? It’s still important to do so, but this is why so many young people are disillusioned.

I forgot to mention regarding Coachella: I also watched Moby’s set! Besides being an older Gen X/younger Baby Boomer rave kid with some very cool experimental “old school” EDM, I didn’t know much about him beyond his hit singles. Impressed though by his set. Reading about him afterward, I learned he’s quite well known as an animal rights advocate. Philosophically, I have total respect for that. In fact, “Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect” or PLUR as colloquially understood in rave culture! His views got me contemplating, as they sometimes do, the broader question of suffering among living beings, both humans and animals alike.

I do think, though, that anything good on its face can be taken to an extreme. I worry when perfect becomes the enemy of much better. We need social change warriors and moderates alike, and I likely fall somewhere between the two camps as a so-called “pragmatic progressive.” In other words: Stoicism? I want to make the world better than it is, but with the wisdom not to waste resources trying to make it what it can’t be, only to end up nowhere, or worse off. Case in point, the Dignity Act post I made last week about imperfect immigration improvements gone unrealized.

There is no easy or simple answer to the inevitable extreme suffering of living beings. It’s one of the hardest things to contemplate. This is among my darker blog posts, but important to speak out loud nonetheless. Heads up: if you happen to be under the influence of any psychedelics, come back when you’re sober!

What a tragic fact of the universe - that when Earth was established, by God, nature, or whatever higher power, killing animals for survival was built into the very conditions of survival for other living beings. Humanity didn’t cause this dystopian reality, but we’ve certainly worsened it at an extreme scale.

If you are a believer, God is either all powerful or all good, but the observable world suggests both can’t possibly be true — as Neil deGrasse Tyson has put it, given all the ways the universe seems intent on killing us. (An online search shows this argument itself goes way back to Epicurus, but Tyson has done as much as anyone to bring it into the mainstream conversation.)

The suffering produced by industrial-scale meat production is horrendous, including for human workers. I’d argue slaughterhouse work is the worst job in the world. And yet I also recognize it’s unrealistic to expect meat consumption to disappear. Dogs and cats need meat for adequate nutrition, for starters.

Given the above, I have really uneasy feelings about the proposed hunting ban in Oregon going on the ballot. At a No Kings rally I was asked to sign it, and at first I didn’t, but changed my mind when a second person came by. It’s a worth thoughtful conversation for sure, but on its face, I’d still vote no. Are we trying to create a culture war issue? Although hunting and fishing is not my thing at all, do people really not see the difference between slaughterhouse factory farming, and someone who quickly kills an elk that dies instantly and has meat in the freezer for 6 months, and sustainably so? Why are we focused on individual hunters who are disproportionately Republican, instead of big corporate agriculture?

Then there’s also the issue of animal testing. I think it should be discouraged whenever alternatives are feasible, but I’m not yet convinced outright bans are appropriate, especially where animal testing is needed for human medicine development. That said, the most humane methods available must be mandatory and strictly enforced, particularly for any debatable activity involving animals.

“Certified humane” must become the international standard, not an option. The USDA does technically enforce some humane handling requirements, and while far too inadequate, it’s at least a framework. Recent violations are made publicly available here: www.fsis.usda.gov/inspectio… It’s difficult to even read any of it. But that’s exactly why we need to look. Worse yet, this last February 2026, the Trump admin has tried to eliminate speed limits to slaughterhouse kill floors: humaneaction.org/press-rel…

I also know I am far too much of a foodie to be a fundamentalist vegan, but I do opt for a healthy, plant-dominant diet, especially at home. We’re biologically hardwired to like meat, though I still feel a bit guilty when I eat it, even when it’s supposedly more humanely raised. I’ll also acknowledge that there are multiple credible schools of thought on plant-based versus omnivorous nutrition—an area where I’m far from a full expert. Importantly, I don’t believe in fundamentalism, and I strive for the Buddhist-oriented middle path. That said, too many people out there demonstrate blatant indifference to the suffering of other people, as seen every day in our political system, let alone other living beings. I hope that changes.

The most extreme forms of cruelty must be banned across the board. We desperately need improvement for the collective bettering of the world, despite there being understandable justifications for meat consumption and animal testing—unlike, say, the Holocaust, or torture carried out simply to make others suffer. Those have no justification whatsoever. Organizations like Freedom From Torture document in sobering detail how many countries still practice it today, in defiance of international law: www.freedomfromtorture.org/news-and-… The fact that ongoing torture happens to the most vulnerable among us is a total disgrace.

I get that suffering, to very widely varying degrees, is part of any living being’s life. Some of us get to live with far less of it than others. I find solace in believing in karma and the possibility of its manifestation before, during, and after my life—rather than in blind, random luck (or lack thereof) of the universe. I hope most of humanity can better agree on eliminating the most extreme forms of suffering towards all first: cruelty, torture, human rights abuses.

Kudos to the organizations and people out there actively doing good and moving the needle—for animals and for humans alike.

Last thing about the cosmos for a little while: I forgot to mention lunar rainbows and meteor showers. I saw a lunar rainbow on New Years Eve at Mt. Hood Skibowl which was a first. It’s a pretty rare phenomenon. A little bit about that: www.astronomy.com/science/i…

I also took stock of potential upcoming events visible in the Portland, Oregon area. This coming Wednesday morning, April 22nd, we could have a pretty cool meteor shower at 5am if it’s clear although rain is in the forecast. That said, weather changes quickly. Although we don’t have any total eclipses coming up soon, we will have another nearly total (still partial) lunar eclipse after sunset on August 27 that I’ll be trying to watch!

Also, as someone that loves watching Goose shows live, I appreciate the high quality production of Coachella being live-streamed in real time on YouTube (known buy the pun “Couchella,” although I wish they “premiered” some of their sets at a later date and took a page of out of the Goose playbook. Still nice to tune in for free on YouTube though, in real time! To my knowledge, other music festivals don’t do that, but given Coachella’s enormous size and international recognition, it makes sense.

It’s not my number one festival I’d like to go to, but I’d put it my top five. Current festivals I’ve never been to that are top of my bucket list include Viva El Ganso in (Cancun, Mexico), Shambhala (Salmo, B.C., Canada), and Electric Forest (Rothbury, Michigan). Coachella would probably rank 4th, maybe 5th if I included EDC or Bonnaroo in the top 5.

I watched all of Sabrina Carpenter’s first weekend set, and Foster the People last night, both of which exceeded my expectations. I also watched part of DJ Snake, RL Grime, and Flossadramus play on stage together. These are 3 EDM DJ legends from the 2010s (my wife knew pretty well), doing actual skilled DJing and mixing live. True craftsmen indeed.

While I didn’t watch in real time, I also later saw excerpts of Justin Bieber’s performance. His fans going apeshit was impressive and entertaining to watch! It easily exceeded that of Rush in Rio’s famous Brazil show in way back in 2002, and was honestly more comparable to Beatles fans screaming in 1960s. I know it’s a big statement, but it’s also clearly evident by the screaming supposedly getting so loud, it interrupted the WiFi broadcast. Damn… who would have thought?

Also, as I’ve been guitar-focused, I’ve felt more or less indifferent to most pop superstars, as notably contrasted with the animosity and trolling put forth by some haters. It blows my mind how much of it is out there. Justin Bieber’s songs are catchy, sure, and the guy clearly has a nice voice and some talent, but personally, I rarely get lured in without some tasty guitar riffs.

That said, don’t like an artist? Then don’t listen to them! Just because they don’t inspire you doesn’t mean we should disparage their inspiration towards their actual fans. It’d be an oxymoron to say you’re a music connoisseur and also a troll. Despite his talent, Bieber always seemed hostage to the whims of greedy producers. After my wife pointed it out to me, I could tell now that he’s in his 30s, he’s just doing what he wants to do, which is very cool to see. Honestly, fuck the record companies. I always want to see artists do what authentically their art, even if it doesn’t inspire me the way it does to others. That goes for any genre!

A few recent things on my mind these last few days that I’ve come across:

Marketplace’s special released recent episode. www.youtube.com/watch

Full episode required listening! I mean, Kai Ryssdal in his element is always great to hear. I need not convince regular listeners of the program on why.

I wasn’t familiar with his interviewee, Kyla Scanlon, despite her being close to my age, probably since I’m not on social media anymore. www.kylascanlon.com (As a side note, I often find that women my age who are a little nerdy adds to their overall attractiveness for me.) Super cool nonetheless!

Regular listeners of NPR in the morning have undoubtedly heard the unmistakable voice of David Brancaccio of the Marketplace Morning Report. It’s cool to see how Ryssdal and Brancaccio are good colleagues with a warm relationship. Ryssdal finished everything by talking about his unwillingness to compromise on national security as a veteran, fact based reporting, and democracy itself in his economic journalism. Respect!

On a different topic: the Epic History YouTube channel. I thought the story about the Apollo program was interesting! Like many people, I’ve been thinking about space exploration more with the successful completion of the Artemis II mission. www.youtube.com/watch I haven’t watched or listened to any of the other history videos, but I don’t doubt they’re highly informative and accurate. For the history nerds out there, Epic History appears solid.

On this topic of space, I found a short clip on the Star Talk channel, discussing how and why it’s not currently feasible to send human astronauts for Mars exploration, let alone “colonize” Mars in the way Elon Musk had allegedly mentioned. www.youtube.com/watch

Mars at its closest to Earth is still supposedly 3 light minutes away (and 22 light minutes at its furthest orbit)? For comparison, the moon is just over one light second away. Mars is so far for human travel, it’s hard to conceptualize as it would take many months each way in the fastest rocket. Just the fact that rovers have landed on the planet is pretty badass. Some of the scaled videos of I’ve seen of the solar system make it make better sense. www.youtube.com/watch

The fact humans have learned so much about the solar system and observable universe over so many decades is amazing. What a far cry from the hypothesizing of early astronomers like Newton and Galileo. When we consider our political priorities, why wouldn’t humanity want space exploration to be even a small part of what we spend? A good short video by Neil DeGrasse Tyson: www.youtube.com/shorts/Ww…

Come to think of it, my last post on the night sky apps should have been titled “Night To Be Living” as a pun from the title of this blog. Sometimes the creative juices come to mind NOT at 9pm after a long day. But there you go.

Anyways, yesterday was a good day to be a honker, because Goose released a new song yesterday which is worth a mention, titled “Good2B.” It’s got a fun jam. It’s not in my all time top Goose songs, but I mean, it’s vibes bring me joy. Their EDM remix of “Everything Must Go” has been on regular rotation in my shuffle too. There is much good live music on the horizon this year. The intro bass riff, low mix synths, percussion, vocals, and the Rick’s fretwork: I tip my hat as a fan and fellow musician.

Ok, lunch is over. Back to work. But, I had to give an honorable mention to the song. www.youtube.com/watch

Every once in a while I like exploring some of the popular apps on the App Store. Most of the popular ones I already have, and some are worth a more in-depth shoutout, soon but two must haves come to mind for tonight.

The first is the Sky Guide app. I can’t recommend it enough! It’s so cool how you can point it at the night sky and know what you’re looking at. It will also gives the option for alerts for when the International Space Station flies by, as well as calendar alerts to upcoming celestial events. These could be at your geolocation, and/or around the world over the coming months and years. I can read about the cool ones and add them to my Google Calendar with months of advanced notifications!

I have been very fortunate to have seen one total solar eclipse (August 2017), and one total lunar eclipse in my life here in Oregon (March 2025). It would be a real treat to get to see other amazing celestial events in the coming years.

I saw my first total lunar eclipse, in part due to this app right outside my front door. It was a work night, but I went to bed and briefly woke up to see it and go back to bed. We got really lucky with a bit of clouds clearing just in time. It was around 12:07am on March 14, 2025 (unfortunately I missed the most recent total lunar eclipse on March 3rd, although the timing was worse, as I would have had to wake at 3am and go back to bed on a work night, but I still wish I had added it to my calendar).

The second app that I like is the Aurora app for tracking the northern lights. You can see live webcams of some of the best activity in the world at the moment too which is cool. In the Portland, Oregon region, getting the northern lights is so rare, and I was bummed out not seeing it last time. But this app does notify you when there is a slight chance of auroral activity at your location. The closest spots to Oregon are often at best British Columbia, but more often Yukon or Alaska. So not exactly a quick drive. But one I’ll do someday? You bet. Mother nature’s, trippy, colorful night skies are indeed on my bucket list to see at some point!

The American Immigration Council, a subsidiary of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) is an excellent nonprofit advocacy organization. They are much like the ACLU, but with a niche pro-immigration law and policy focus.

The following blog article, from several months ago is well worth a read regarding the Dignity Act. www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/legi… I heard about it from an immigration lawyer I follow on YouTube, Brad Bernstein, who made jokes about it has a practically zero percent chance of passing. www.youtube.com/shorts/bs…

If you are familiar with the Dignity Act, then wow! Kudos to you for learning about the most esoteric, inconspicuous Congressional activity that’s been given functionally no media attention. In many ways, it makes sense, given it’s virtually impossibility of passing in this hyper-partisan gridlock. Indeed, the insanity surrounding ICE got front page headlines, and deservedly so. Even so, I was a bit surprised to have not heard about it. I thought I follow U.S. immigration news pretty closely, and even I wasn’t familiar.

There are elements of the Dignity Act that both progressives and conservatives will absolutely hate. I don’t love it myself, especially as our border with Mexico is as secure as ever. Mexico is not run by ISIS or Kim Jong Un. But much like Oregon’s property tax system, there is no perfect fix to the last 30 years of U.S. immigration history, but that doesn’t mean all ideas are are equal. E-verify is so piecemealed anyways, replete with perverse incentives, that this does a quasi-reset anyways.

To help appease Republicans, the proposed Dignity Act mandates nationwide E-verify, increased border security, and that it only applies to non-criminal undocumented folks, who don’t get an independent path to citizenship or federal benefits despite paying into them, and pay a $7,000 fine over time. It also wouldn’t use any taxpayer funds, and would be immigrant funded, a net tax benefit. I could see how that could be a selling point to Republicans, those who ostensibly claim to not hate immigrants who want to “pay their debt to society” for “not getting to the back of the line and doing immigration the ‘right’ way.”

However, to help satisfy Democrats, it creates a new lawful immigration status called “dignity status” which provides both international travel and work authorization, and protection from deportation if program conditions are met. If those with dignity status are married to a U.S. citizen, or have U.S. citizen children over 21, they could much more easily adjust status outside of the dignity program, and get potentially get inadmissibility bars like unlawful entry waived. It also gets those who entered the U.S. without inspection as children (whether or not DACA status is active) automatically upgraded to a conditional green card, followed by a lawful permanent resident green card, and eventual citizenship if conditions are met.

Side note: speaking of citizenship we MUST affirm birthright citizenship. I hope the Supreme Court does so, and I think they will. Not only does the 14th Amendment speak for itself, but so many people fail to understand that NOT every child automatically gets their parents' home country’s citizenship, and even when they do, it can cost money and time. Plus it will fuck over regular U.S. born children to U.S. born citizens, who don’t automatically get citizneship at birth, but have to go through far more bureaucracy to prove their parents are citizens. It would create a ton of hassle for entirely native born American families.

The prospect of statelessness, where someone is born without citizenship to any place, I see as a very dangerous human rights problem, even if it’s only temporary. It could easily open the door to babies of Mexican immigrants being deported to impoverished, unstable third countries like South Sudan. Everyone deserves to have at least one reasonably stable, peaceful country in the world claim them as their own people from day 1. While I reject American exceptionalism, and believe America is only one of many great countries to be a citizen of in the world, you should get to be a born a citizen where you first arrive into this world, period, full stop. Regardless of the parents, I just think that’s only right and just for humanity.

While not without some serious downsides, compared to the status quo, the Dignity Act sounds like a net improvement from my read of it. For progressives who oppose this legislation, under the excuse of creating second class residents, I would ask, “how is the status quo any better?” Because it isn’t.

Photo below: Oh no! There’s a gap in the border fence! Look at all of those violent criminals and kilos of fentanyl coming through there, by the millions!

Lately I haven’t prioritized my blog and writing daily like I normally like to do. My list of topics I want to write about has been growing faster the days elapsing, which is pretty cool, huh? It feels like life has had one thing after another these last couple of weeks, both good and bad. It has been wonderful finally having the whole interior of the house painted (as it looks and smells way better after the kitchen fire) but it has created a lot of house work with packing and moving, and unpacking belongings in addition to the usual requirements. That said, I’ve been running and went to the Wildwood Trail today for over 12 miles to avoid the sun and get some time jogging. Marathoning again this year is tbd, but feels great to try to stay in good shape nonetheless, especially for the Cascade Relay coming up which I’m joining upon invite!

The Oura app finally gave me my chronotype and body clock since my last post. I am officially a “morning type” based on its assessment, and supposedly my ideal sleeping time is 9:53pm, midpoint at 1:53am, and awake at 5:53am. It’s kind of cool to know this. My Oura sleep stats have worsened the last week or two as I think the scores are more calibrated to my baseline rather than the generic person, although I am very fortunate to sleep mostly well most nights. My weekend scores are invariably better with not waking up at 4:45 am. It will be cool to see more as things progress.

Also, I rarely watch TV, but now that we have a TV in the bedroom mounted, I started watching and listening to the sitcom “Kim’s Convenience” when folding laundry and puttering. It’s about a Korean-Canadian family running a convenience store in Toronto. It is hilarious! And has the cringey, ridiculous style humor of The Office, which I love. I never even knew about it. I guess most Canadian TV shows just aren’t very popular here in America? Since this family is stereotypically Korean-Canadian, both in the show and real life, it is full of their own good-natured Korean and Canadian stereotypes. Now how about some kimchi bulgogi beef bibimbap with my ketchup chips and Molson, eh?

Today I checked out a new hiking area en route home from the Oregon Coast with my wife and two dogs, called Drift Creek Falls Trail 1378. It was on a very narrow paved forest road from the Lincoln City area. We brought some binoculars in hopes of seeing the whale migrations at Boiler Bay State Scenic Viewpoint (apparently whales are supposed to be headed from Mexico up to Alaska at this time). We didn’t see anything in the sunny, cold, and very windy beach weather. Mildly disappointing, but maybe some other time. It was nice to just do a day trip and get a change of pace on a nice day.

A couple cool YouTube videos that I stumbled across this last week while I haven’t been updating the blog:

1. Neil deGrasse Tyson gives a very insightful astrophysicist’s perspective of why war is very bad for humanity and the planet from an evolutionary standpoint. The Star Talk channel that he leads seems intriguing so I subscribed to it. Totally makes sense why the guy is good friends with Bill Nye, The Science Guy. www.youtube.com/watch

2. I mentioned James Talarico before, but he continues to impress me. At this point, he’d be my top choice for a “national” 2028 Democrat who’d make a great president, even over Gavin Newsom. Talarico just has serious charisma, he’s well spoken, and sounds moderate, patrioritic, and Jesus loving in rhetoric, while being totally progressive on policy, which is perfect (While, for example, I love Zohran Mamdani, but realize he’d be too progressive in rhetoric for a national candidate). This video was great with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov of Raging Moderates. www.youtube.com/watch

3. SNL last week was awesome! Harry Styles joined in a couple of some funny clips too! Plus, Weekend Update was great as usual. Not to mention James Austin Johnson’s impersonations are spot on. My faves from last Saturday: www.youtube.com/watch www.youtube.com/watch www.youtube.com/watch

Will have more to add soon too!

Recently my direct supervisor in our team meeting mentioned how he wanted to prime our meeting with a Beastie Boys song, but didn’t have a jam in mind with “work appropriate” lyrics. (I highly doubt anyone on my team would have been taken issue with less-than-clean lyrics, but I get it. It’s a professional setting, and better to be safe than sorry on a topic eligible to be a needless HR headache. Fair enough.)

So, with the “clean lyrics” ethos in mind, I had the audacious and silly Michael Scott-esque idea of offering to share a poem on property tax appeals, when the next team meeting started. As a matter of fact, my very first ever ChatGPT prompt was asking it to write me an Oregon property tax poem, to which it blew my mind in 7 seconds!

My direct supervisor, whom I like and respect a lot (and I’d imagine he feels similarly towards me), and shares a similar sense of humor, was coincidentally gone that meeting (although that wasn’t a factor in my calculus of whether or not to share). In a half serious, half joking, prim-and-proper tone, I pitched it as a potential on-topic way for us to get in the zone and maybe even better engaged with the minutiae of our [dry and administrative] job duties, as a plausible, “clean lyrics” alternative to our boss’s cool idea.

If you’re already chuckling, and maybe cringing a little, you’re in good company. I took it a step further and decided to take a verbal poll over Zoom, and ask if anyone wanted to hear it. One of my colleagues suggested waiting until our supervisor was back so he wasn’t left out. I laughed and replied “that’s the nicest way I’ve saying, ‘please no, spare us the cringe! Don’t be a Michael Scott with us being Jim Halperts.’ But it’s all good, I’ll spare you guys.” Given the cultural popularity of the TV Show “The Office,” I knew most people would get the joke, and it seems everyone did. I got some hearty laughs after that.

Most people seemed to enjoy my sincere and goofy essence, especially since I’m a good colleague that cares about others, and gets my job done. And honestly, if that type of completely innocuous humor happened to be less than well-received by someone, who didn’t say anything, I don’t fucking care. Those wouldn’t be the people that I’d click with or win over anyways. If you have a problem with me as a colleague, you’d have a problem with anyone as a colleague.

I’ll take my net social winnings with those who matter and actually appreciate me, and those who don’t can be dismissed as overhead on my figurative social balance sheet, as emotionlessly as utilities or administrative fees. With age, my figurative social net operating income (NOI) only increases, and figurative social expense ratio only decreases, especially measured year over year, or longer.

In the meantime before the next week’s meeting, I shared the poem with my supervisor during our one-on-one. The look on his face was worth a thousand words. He jokingly suggested that in my free time, I make an AI-generated “chill hip-hop remix” of my property tax poetry lyrics. So I kept that in mind.

The next meeting my supervisor also had to be gone, so I told our team that I already shared the poem with him and we didn’t have to worry about excluding him. To not inadvertently push anyone’s discomfort with my goofy sense of humor too far, I mentioned that if anyone actually wanted to hear the ridiculous poem, to just privately message me. To my pleasant and rather endearing surprise, my one other colleague on my team close to my age (she’s I believe a few years younger actually) reached out and said she wanted to hear it.

Fortunately this type of poem wouldn’t be a foreseeable HR problem. Being a government employee, I know everything I do is subject to public records requests and auditing. I never say anything on my work chat or email that I wouldn’t be okay with my boss’s boss’s boss seeing, or plastered on the front pages of The Oregonian.

More recently this week, even though my supervisor was totally joking about the hip hop mix tape, he was absolutely rolling on the floor cracking up, when I actually followed through on making an AI generated song, and shared the MP3 files, although this time over private personal phone text. I also privately shared the MP3 files over text, to both my boss and my above mentioned colleague.

So how did I pull this off? Well the poem was courtesy of Gemini. The actual soundtrack was courtesy of the free version of the Suno app/website. It was kind of fun, to be honest. On a more serious note, I think real creativity in music is still far better done by human ingenuity. That said, for comedy, parodies, etc., or as a learning tool, AI can be a novel and admittedly fun tool/toy.

It’s a good lesson that while actually doing your job well, with integrity to the public matters first and foremost, it’s also good to be able to make fun of yourself and enjoy the journey along the way. Take your job seriously, but take yourself less so.

So… here’s the poem:

At Five-Oh-One, on Haw-thorne Street, Where pub-lic needs and val-ues meet. I serve the town with heart and pride, With mar-ket da-ta as my guide.

On Jan-u-ar-y first, the day, I look at what the mar-kets say. The stat-ute says that I must be, A source of deep neu-tral-i-ty.

The retail owner has a case, We meet to-geth-er, face to face. We look at ev-ery va-cant space, To find the mar-ket’s hon-est place.

I use the income approach tool, It is the standard coun-ty rule. We take the prof-it, then di-vide, With math-e-mat-ics on our side.

For mul-ti-fam-ly build-ings too, I check the ren-tal facts with you. I find the rates from down the street, To make the val-ue quite com-plete.

The ner-dy num-bers help me show, How val-ues rise or how they go. I share the sales that I have found, To keep the roll on sol-id ground.

Though Mea-sure Fif-ty lim-its change, And keeps the tax-es in a range. It is my goal to be sin-cere, For ev-ery per-son wait-ing here.

The PVAB board will make the call, In-side the coun-ty hear-ing hall. The clerk records the fi-nal word, Where ev-ery voice is fair-ly heard.

How about it eh? I tried attaching the audio file samples to give it a listen, but it didn’t seem to work, so you’ll just have to take my word, or reach out to me. I also attached a screenshot of the Suno website.

I haven’t yet listened (start to finish) the Grace Under Pressure live 1984 Toronto show, posted by Rush’s official YouTube channel yet. www.youtube.com/watch But I did pre-save the Grace Under Pressure remastered album in Spotify, got notified about it. I re-listened to the whole re-released studio portion start to finish on my long, slow run today.

Also, for some book updates, I finished “Abundance” on audiobook by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. Excellent read, and free on Libby! It’s nice to take a little hiatus from podcasts, and the inevitable ads that accompany their free episodes.

The first portion of “Abundance” by Klein gets very wonky, dense, and into the stats. But it all binds together well, without being overly optimistic or pessimistic. If that’s your cup of tea like me, you’re in for a treat. Conversely, if you’re more into the nonfiction narrative, historical explanations of ideas, the Thompson portion (part 2) of the book might be more for you, although both authors feature both wonky stats and narration. Even as someone with formal education in Enviro Econ and Policy, and Public Admin, I learned some new ideas myself, which mostly validated my own intuitions and understandings alike with some broader clarity…and detailed receipts! The big takeaway, in a sentence? We can have a quasi-utopian future of sustainable development by efficiently and effectively implementing clean, cutting edge tech at scale, some of which is already underway.

I’ve also been listening to “The Age of Grievance” by Frank Bruni of the New York Times, also on Libby. I’m about halfway done now, and find it super insightful on how much grievance is glorified in society, in a really unhealthy way. Will give more of an update when done!

Last, I also started listening to “The Let Them Theory” by Mel Robbins. I’ve listened to excerpts of her podcast episodes and like the content I’ve heard by her. She’s chatted with both Jefferson Fisher, and Vanessa Marin before. Not far in, but so far so good!

Yesterday I had a nice surprise to see that my directly deposited paycheck was several hundred dollars higher than normal and expected, after taxes!

As I believe the saying goes, “a life well-funded is a life less stressful.” Actually, I don’t know if that’s a common saying… but I remember hearing it somewhere! Can’t remember the source. But I like it because “well-funded” isn’t simply glamorizing wealth in and of itself.

As it turns out, I’m getting back pay since July 1, 2025 for a retroactive cost of living adjustment, and wage changes, added to my current mid-March paycheck! I hadn’t been following developments closely like I should have, but union negotiations took place for a long time between AFSCME Local 88 and Multnomah County. Then it understandably took time for payroll to process. Information is publicly available here:

www.afscmelocal88.org/2026/02/l…

There is also a NW Labor Press article about it: nwlaborpress.org/2026/01/m… My wife and I both get print editions mailed to our house for free as members, but their content is online. I highly recommend reading it if you care about labor union activity in the PNW!

It was very welcome news during a time of unusual and unavoidable expenses such as immigration filing fees, my car’s registration DEQ and registration renewal, and my wife needing new construction boots and pants. My parents have also generously helped with reducing our housing payment this month, and fronting the cost of the post-fire expenses like the stove, and painting. While my wife and I have been low on day-to-day cash this year, we have proudly been making principal payments on credit card debt, and have exclusively used the debit card for everything.

I think the old saying about money not buying happiness is such a crock of shit for the bottom 90% of society. Here’s my metric: until you can comfortably make ends meet while also having 3-6 months of liquid short-term savings, and are totally debt-free (with the exception of fixed low-interest, secured debt that’s specifically leveraged towards a lucrative investment, like a house), money absolutely buys happiness. Maybe put another way, financial security buys happiness, and well over half of society does not meet that criteria. Beyond that, then it probably buys happiness, but not by big margins, if at all. I think the money-happiness graph follows a logarithmically-shaped line with quickly diminishing marginal returns for each additional dollar beyond a certain point.

I take a more controversial, leftist position than most of society, but I think there should be legal ceilings and floors on everyone’s poverty and wealth. I don’t think anyone should live below the federal poverty line, or personally have more than $999 million dollars. I don’t think billionaires should exist. Multi-millionaires, yes, but billionaires, no. Organizations, foundations, governments, etc. could have billions, sure, but not individuals. The figurative floor to ceiling height is still pretty fucking high. After all, if you’re living just above the poverty line, you’re simply having basic necessities of shelter and food met. Conversely, if you’re not happy with $999 million dollars, the problem is you, and only you. There are plenty of other people that would take $9 million, or $0.9 million and be stoked, myself included.

Today marks 6 years since the World Health Organization officially declared the no-longer-novel Coronavirus a global pandemic. Man, what a long and very strange trip it has been since then, both personally and societally, spanning ages 24 to 30 for me.

Wednesday, March 11, 2020 was also the last “normal” day of major gatherings, such as professional sports and concerts here in Oregon, and very likely elsewhere, as lockdown restrictions came into full effect over the coming days.

I remember that strange day for totally unrelated reasons, as my colleague whom I liked, was terminated for cause, with very unfortunate timing. I remember hearing rumblings about this novel virus before, in late February 2020 when a Lake Oswego School District custodian was hospitalized, and around the same time, The Daily podcast mentioned how what happened in Wuhan (roughly the size of Chicago) with its lockdowns could happen here. But it wasn’t until Monday, March 16, when I got sent home to work remotely and Oregon went into partial lockdown that I fully understood how cataclysmic, devastating, and game-changing this virus would be. I have some strange recollections between March 11th and March 16th, as things became progressively more eerie.

In hindsight, I’m grateful for how privileged I really was relative to most of humanity. I never contracted this microscopic enemy until the Omicron variant infected me in February 2022 (on the tail end of its January 2022 peak) nearly two years later, and after being vaccinated and boosted.

Goose released their final jams of 3/11/2020, which also turned out to be their last “regular” concert before things reopened in 2021. I discovered these hidden jems much later, probably at least a year or two. Their “Lovely Day” cover was awesome and especially their jam starting around 3:57 to the end: www.youtube.com/watch Their version of “Arrow” was also great, and likely one of my favorite versions of the song I’ve heard: www.youtube.com/watch Well mixed too! The cool part is that Jeremy Schon, the lead guitarist for Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, joined on the second part of the Goose song, “Butter Rum.” A fun jam indeed. Plus, Jeremy Schon is such an underrated guitarist. Fitting titles perhaps, given it was last “Lovely Day” of live concerts, as the “Arrow” of the pandemic loomed?

Also, and not for nothing, newly released content by Anika Nilles I see? Um, yes! Sign me up! Need I say more? www.youtube.com/watch The odd time signature rhythms and vibey synths were pretty cool to listen to!